During the manufacture of electrical connectors, integrated circuits and other electrical or electronic devices, the devices are stored in and transferred to and from various types of equipment for carrying out different manufacturing or assembling steps. For instance, the devices may be assembled, tested, inspected, and the like, during which the devices are stored, protected and handled in protective storage tubes between various manufacturing processes or machines. Most such tubes are fabricated of extruded plastic material, but the tubes may be made of metal or other appropriate material. A "rack" of the tubes may be loaded into a "magazine" of an assembly machine, with the devices being dispensed seriatim from each individual tube, whereafter the tube is discarded for dispensing devices from the successive tube in the rack.
As an example, only, such storage tubes may hold as many as twenty-five or more electrical devices for handling during manufacture. When processing is complete, the devices also may be shipped to customers in the tubes. A very large electronic manufacturer may process thousands and thousands of electronic devices in any given lot. For every one-thousand electronic devices, forty storage tubes are used. A plurality of the tubes normally are stored in a bulk container or tote box which is transferred, along with the related paperwork, between separate manufacturing processes or to the customer.
Heretofore, one packaging system has utilized a pair of elongated stop rods for holding the electronic devices in their respective tubes, and to hold a plurality of the tubes for conjoint manual manipulation. More particularly, each tube is provided with an aperture therethrough near each opposite end thereof. When a "rack" of tubes are assembled with a plurality of tubes in a generally parallel juxtaposition, the stop rods are inserted through the aligned apertures of all of the tubes in the rack to close-off the ends of the tubes and to allow for manual handling of an entire rack of tubes interconnected by the rods.
Heretofore, after the electronic devices have been completely processed or finally used by a customer, the storage tubes have been discarded. In other words, the tubes have been considered as disposable items. However, with ever-increasing manufacturing volume, and with ever-increasing environmental considerations, it has become expedient to reuse or recycle such storage tubes. These recycling programs have encountered problems when the packaging system uses stop rods or pins at the ends of a plurality of tubes, as described above.
More particularly, the storage tubes are manufactured (i.e. extruded) in lots. The spacing between the apertures at the ends of the tubes (i.e. through which the stop rods extend) often vary from one manufacturing lot to another manufacturing lot. The tubes are not returned for recycling in any sorted lot system. In addition, some tubes may be subjected to differing extreme temperatures during certain manufacturing processes or storage conditions, causing the tubes to elongate or shrink in length. The end result is that any given "rack" of tubes are randomly gathered and the apertures at the ends of the tubes for receiving the elongated stop rods are not in alignment, thereby preventing at least one of the stop rods from passing through all of the tubes to hold the tubes in the rack or stacked array. This invention is directed to solving this problem and thereby enhancing or promoting programs for the recycling of storage tubes for electronic devices, as described above.